By Sana Atif
The Taliban’s directorate of vice and virtue have established checkpoints in Kandahar city and are stopping people and demanding they recite the five daily prayers (namaz), local sources say.
A city resident tells Zan Times that the Taliban have set up checkpoints in different parts of the city where Taliban mullahs test passers-by to see if they can properly recite their prayers.
“In Urdubazar in Kandahar city, the Taliban stop people at a checkpoint and bring them to a mullah at the mosque. In the mosque, they are tested on their prayers, recitation of the surahs of the Quran, the rules of prayer, and ablutions.”
According to this source, people are scolded and insulted when they do not perform to the satisfaction of the mullahs. He also says that Taliban gunmen threaten to punish or imprison citizens if they cannot pray well enough to satisfy the mullahs or cannot correctly answer any religious queries.
Another source, who asked not to be identified, says that the Taliban have also established a checkpoint in the Police District 2 of Kandahar city since December 12. “Last night, when I closed my shop and was going home, the Taliban stopped many people in the area and took them to the mullah so that the mullah could see if they knew their prayers correctly, or not,” the source explains to Zan Times. “The mullah asked each person to recite the surahs of the prayers. When someone made a mistake in the Arabic words or their recitation of the surahs, the Taliban would strike them with the butts of their guns,” he adds. After the fall of the previous government, the Taliban replaced most of the mullahs and imams of the city’s mosques with religious leaders deemed to have viewpoints that sync with those of the Taliban.
Noor Ahmad*, a resident of Kandahar, tells Zan Times that the mullah imams are even sending Taliban soldiers to people’s houses to order them to attend all five daily prayers in the local mosque. Those who do not regularly attend are insulted, scolded, and threatened. He also confirms that mullahs are making locals take prayer tests.
The increasing power of Taliban-approved mullahs and imams comes weeks after the Taliban leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, told judges that they should enforce “hudud and qisas” according to Islamic sharia. In the Taliban’s interpretation, “hudud and qisas” can include lashing, amputating, and stoning to death in front of public crowds.
It should be mentioned that after the fall of the previous Afghan government, the Taliban removed most of the mullahs and imams of the mosques in Kandahar and replaced them with people close to them.
